Word: stringing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...complexity of the human genome and the magnitude of the effort required to understand it. DNA is found in the human-cell nucleus in the form of 46 separate threads, each coiled into a packet called a chromosome. Unraveled and tied together, these threads would form a fragile string more than 5 ft. long but only 50 trillionths of an inch across...
...what a wondrous string it is. As Watson and Crick discovered in 1953, DNA consists of a double helix, resembling a twisted ladder with sidepieces made of sugar and phosphates and closely spaced connecting rungs. Each rung is called a base pair because it consists of a pair of complementary chemicals called nitrogenous bases, attached end to end, either adenine (A) joined to thymine (T) or cytosine (C) attached to guanine...
...letter "words" they spell, reading in sequence along either side of the ladder, are instructions to the cell on how to assemble amino acids into the proteins essential to the structure and life of its host. Each complete DNA "sentence" is a gene, a discrete segment of the DNA string responsible for ordering the production of a specific protein...
That effort, says Caltech research fellow Richard Wilson, "is analogous to going around and shaking hands with everyone on earth." The resulting string of code letters, according to the 1988 National Research Council report urging adoption of the genome project, would fill a million-page book. Even then, much of the message would be obscure. To decipher it, researchers would need more powerful computer systems to roam the length of the genome, seeking out meaningful patterns and relationships...
...that they should all be performed. The tools of molecular biology have enormous potential for both good and evil. Lurking behind every genetic dream come true is a possible Brave New World nightmare. After all, it is the DNA of human beings that might be tampered with, not some string bean or laboratory mouse. To unlock the secrets hidden in the chromosomes of human cells is to open up a host of thorny legal, ethical, philosophical and religious issues, from invasion of privacy and discrimination to the question of who should play God with man's genes...